The Lost Highway – Part One
Down From The Mountain
The story of the current bluegrass revival and how the music of a remote, rural region of America came to represent the “authentic” experience of the whole nation.
When George Clooney made his way into a makeshift recording studio in the movie Oh Brother Where Art Thou he was re-living a turning point in musical history. Before the first recordings were made country music was trapped in the isolated Appalachian Mountains.
The Big Bang: The Big Bang of Country Music took place in Bristol, Tennessee in August 1927. It was in a disused hat factory on State Street that East Coast talent scout Ralph Peer set up the world’s first portable recording equipment and recorded sessions with Jimmie Rodgers and The Carter Family. Lost Highway reconstructs these historic sessions using musicians instead of actors.
Rodgers went on to become the first national star of country music, creating a blueprint for almost every solo performer to follow. The influence of the Carter Family, with their soulful gospel harmonies and intricate guitar playing, can be heard in every harmony group since. Together they laid the foundations for modern country music.
The Mountain Tradition: Country music has roots that run deep into America’s soil and it came to life in the rural south-east mountains of Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia, brought there by settlers from the British Isles. Songs would be passed down through generations and, because of the isolation of the Appalachians, in many cases these songs survived unknown to the outside world until the beginning of the 20th century.
Like its close cousin, the blues, country music moved out of the fields and into the cities in search of an audience – and in the process was transformed into commercial entertainment.
The Role of Radio: The 1930s Depression hit the record industry hard and among the first to be dropped from the artist roster were country artists. Radio filled the gap. By 1938, 10 million rural families owned radio sets, often run off car batteries – about 70 per cent of all rural families had access to one. To cater for this audience radio stations began running barn dance shows, the most popular of which was the Grand Ole Opry broadcast from Nashville, already on the way to becoming the capital of country music.
Bluegrass: Bluegrass – named after the bluegrass state of Kentucky – was a 1940s development that took traditional string based mountain songs and built precise vocal arrangements around them.
Bill Monroe, a dark and brooding mandolin-playing singer with the highest-pitched voice in all of popular music, was the godfather of bluegrass. His unique and keening vocal style was called the “high lonesome”, such was the uncanny depth of emotion it carried.
Brother Acts: Bill Monroe had begun his career as the other half of a brother act – the Monroes. Brother acts were among the most popular performers of the the 40s and 50s. Tight, lyrical harmonies underpinned by simple acoustic instrumentation were the basis of the careers of the Louvin Brothers and the Stanley Brothers, both of whom feature in this episode.
Oh Brother… using testimony from Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch, Ralph Stanley and The Whites – all of whom appear on the Oh Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack – we bring the story of this music bang up to date.
Other contributors include musicians Ricky Skaggs, Charlie Louvin, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Vince Gill and Earl Scruggs.
Lost Highway – The Story of Country Music is a four part series produced by the BBC in 2003. The entire box set of DVD’s can be purchased right here.